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CQEmiGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



The Beggars Vision 



BY 



^^xn^^v BROOKES MORE 

author of 
'the lover's rosary" "songs op a red cross nurse' 



Illustrated hy 
TRACY PORTER RUDD 

With an Introduction hy 
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE 




THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON, U. S. A. 






Copyright, 1921 

by 

BROOKES MORE 

All rights reserved 



OCI.A654226 



PRINTED BY WRIGHT * POTTER PRINTING COMPANY 
AT BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



DEC 29 1921 



TO KATHARINE — 
PLEDGE OF MY LIFE 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction — " The Mystic Seven" 

The Beggar's Vision ^ 

The Convent Legend •, • ^ 

The Valley Mysterious 1''' 

The Last of Lost Eden ^1 

Sinners All — ^"^ 

Orpheus and Eurydice ^5 

The Land of Light 49 



PHOTOGRAVURES 

PAGE 

Title and author's signature .... cover 

The beggar's vision ^ 

For as the cold winds gathered form . . 12 

And all the sad nuns gathered round . . 14 

You will see a ghostly finger .... 17 

Lilith— ~ ^^ 

Another spirit finds an audience .... 30 

From light eternal to the gloom below . 41 

Return with her in thy protecting arms . 43 

Alas it was, as i believed 55 



INTRODUCTION 

" The Mystic Seven " 

IN the explanatory note which prefaces the final poem 
in this book, "The Land of Light", Mr. More makes 
the statement that "Seventy stanzas are in the 
narrative", but his thought, impregnated with sym- 
bols, leaps over the semicolon to add "and there is a mystery 
of perfection contained in the number seventy, it being ten 
times the perfect seven". 

There are seven narratives in this book of Mr. More's, the 
"perfect seven", to which is attached an element of that 
mystery, interwoven symbolically, which is associated with 
the mystery of numbers. The numbers signify, because the 
meaning in every one of these poems has an exit upon thought 
that is only reached through corridors mirrored with a subtle 
and alluring radiance of expression. There is at the core of 
it all a philosophy of idealism. I mean that all the narratives 
together make a kind of common source which take diverse 
directions through the imagination, like branching streams. 
I might put it another way, more directly, and say that the 
poet has idealized the religious mood, rather perhaps, 
idealized religion as the deepest human need, and made it 
manifest through the various conceptions of it among man- 
kind. Now to do this in poetry that makes no compromise 
with pulpit morals, with nothing that diminishes the sense 
of the proper balance between the imagination and its sub- 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 



stance, between the vision and its symbol, is to achieve a 
kind of poetic originality that is distinctive. These poems of 
Mr. More's have this distinction. 

From what I think contains the central idea of these poems, 
and fine, it seems, for the complete blending of substance and 
expression, though there are in some of the others passages 
of a higher quality of verbal imagery and subtler music — 
from "Sinners All — "I quote the last three stanzas, the 
first of which closes with the speech of Timour Lenk: 

"The Brahmin priesthood cursed my life and death; 

The Roman Pontiff banned me to unrest; — 
Yet here I've wandered as the winter's breath, 

No sadder than the saints whom they have blest." 

So the bad ghost of Timour Lenk proclaimed 

The weak futility of church and saint; 
And as he finished many more exclaimed 

Strong approbation in weird accents faint. 

And all the while this offspring of the tomb 

Thus whispered, they were 'neath Saint Peter's Dome, 

Where Pope and Cardinals in that sacred room. 
Conferred for glory and success of Rome. 

Here, I think, one gets the key of the conceptive unity in 
these narratives. In this poem "Sinners All — ", the ghosts 
of the adherents of many faiths, from the Crusader of the 
Holy Wars to the Hindu and Mohammedan, come uneasily 
back to tell the world, a world much as they had left it in 



INTRODUCTION 



aspiration and conflict for the true way, of their faithful 
disciple-ship. Now, the other poems, as it were, grow out of 
this fundamental idea as distinct and separate symbols of 
different creeds. All, however, prefaced by the opening 
poem "The Beggar's Vision", which is typified as humanity 
lifting its soul from the trammels of impeding earthly ex- 
perience, towards the light of the immortal goal. The figure 
in "The Beggar's Vision" has another aspect as well. That 
side is the passive acquiescence to the external laws of nature. 
Man will always drift toward a crisis; it is the crisis that 
precipitates his character of conduct. In consequence, re- 
ligion mixes very little with the externals of human life; it 
is nature alone that re-acts upon them. But ever just beneath 
the surface of human consciousness the reflexes of remote 
religious traditions in the blood are eternally on protective 
guard to meet and combat the external influences accompany- 
ing every crisis. *'The Beggar's Vision" condenses this 
immense array of moods, and the poet, with a deft imagina- 
tion, leaves the solution open to each man's care. 

With "The Beggar's Vision" in mind it is of importance 
to note, in grasping the absolute unity of these narratives 
to mention here, the last poem in this book, "The Land of 
Light", which is a beautiful allegory of the search and finding 
of Hope and Truth, which are the ultimate attainments of 
"The Beggar's Vision" perfected through the moods of the 
intervening poems. 

What I have so far said is the mere clue to the substance 
that Mr. More weaves into the details of the poems them- 
selves. In these details the matter is more complicated 
when you stop to consider the elements out of which he 

xiii 



INTRODUCTION 

makes his narratives. The narrative of "The Convent 
Legend" may seem on acquaintance but a mere picture, 
richly but coolly coloured, with its tragic interest; but there 
is far more than that, for the glow of ecstasy, unearthly and 
divine, of a Church's doctrine is made sensible in the figure 
of the dying nun, and the attitude of the convent towards 
her death. So in "The Last of Lost Eden", the symbol of 
perfection made at the beginning still exists hidden in the 
world where man will one day find it through the perfection 
of self, the soul. In "Orpheus and Eurydice", the poet 
turns to the pagan world for his symbol and through the 
sweet memories of the elegiac myth, saturates the very 
thought and experience of religion with its most vital and 
dominant force — Love, 

The wearied centuries have withered away 

The essence of his youth and left him old — 

He seems a shadow in the noon of day, 

A wraith of pale mist when the moon is cold. 

Weary of heart the Golden Age he mourns. 
In winter winds attuned to minor keys; 

And when the gladdened earth warm spring adorns 
The birds rehearse his plaintive melodies. — 

And who is he whose song is sad and sweet? 

And who is he that sings a mournful song? 
And who is he with slow but viewless feet. 

That treads the swaying asphodels among? 



INTRODUCTION 



Isn't Orpheus the very type of perfection, the ideal em- 
bodiment of the love whose substance is filled with spiritual 
elements? Note the analogy suggested by the poet in his 
conception of Love as the supreme attainment of human 
striving. The sad Orpheus mourns in the weariness of his 
heart, overburdened with memories of his lost Eurydice, for 
the Golden Age. Now, the Founder of Christianity, was 
also a "Man of Sorrows", and He, too, set Love as the per- 
fection to be attained by man whereby he was to inherit that 
Heaven of His Father's where a Golden Age existed of per- 
petual duration. 

One sees at once that Mr. More's vision in the poems 
bridges religions Christian and Pagan across which Love 
travels from race to race, from era to era, now in the guise of 
a Virtue, now in the guise of a Moral Grace, but always in 
the same body and substance, and eternally with the same 
glowing countenance. 

I might here appropriately quote a remark dropped by the 
author in an interview which reveals the serious ideals and 
high purposes of these poems. The statement will show to 
the reader that Mr. More's conception of the poet's function 
is the same as that of those mighty bards of old who were 
the teachers and the counsellors of mankind, and not mere 
weavers of bizarre and decorative fancies. The poet is the 
true maker of high imaginings, of the mysteries and wonders 
of life. "In this cycle of seven religio-psycho-philosophico- 
narrative poems", he is reported to have said, "may be 
found one which pleads a knowledge of Christian Mythology, 
pertaining to the Garden of Eden — which was promised, 
unchanged and preserved in all its pristine beauty to the 

XV 



INTRODUCTION 



saved issue of Adam and Eve, and to be given to them as 
the inheritance of a distant millennium; and some inkling of 
Chaldean and Arabian Mythology may be useful when read- 
ing *The Land of Light'. But how can I guarantee the 
Grecian Mj^th, 'Orpheus and Eurydice' — bedevilled by the 
serpent in the Golden Age, may foreshadow, or parallel, the 
true history of Adam and Eve and the Serpent in the Age 
of Innocence?" 

The "guarantee" of the parallelism of the symbolical 
unity of life, love and religion, one may find in the narratives 
themselves. They will be discussed for their thought and 
substance, and equally enjoyed and admired for a rich and 
varied poetic expression. 

WILLL\M STANLEY BRAITHWAITE. 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

There is a path that wanders through the hills, 
In spring made beautiful \sith babbling rills 
That follow it hke gold beneath the sun, 
Or turn to silver when the day is done : 
But in the winter it is bleak and bare, — 
The coldest winds are even colder there: 
Nursed in the gorges of a mountain chain. 
Like Furies they gather the sleet and rain; 
And huge clouds hurtling over that lone path 
Destroy its loveliness with wreck and wTath — 
God sain me those who chance to pass that way. 
To brave such storms when evening turneth gray! 

It happened on a night of storm and hail, 
And rain and sleet — an early winter gale. 
Bitter and bhghting after autumn's breath, 
Cutting the bones with edge as keen as death. — 
No cheerful ray could pierce the gloomy clouds; 
The silent stars were wrapped in silent shrouds; 
And, save the whirhng splash of hail and rain, — 
And save the sad wind, — as a god in pain, — 
A silence a'^^ul, terrible and vast. 
Made Nature voiceless in the wintry blast : — 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



The cock forgot to cheer his drooping hens, 
The owls were moping in their leafy dens, 
The moonstruck frog forgot to gloat and sing. 
The droning beetle shut his painted wing. 
The tuneful insects of orchestral night 
Had hushed their bands in universal fright. — 
God help the homeless, pity the distressed. 
The wretch forlorn who hath not where to rest! 

In that lone pathway on that bitter night, 
A vagrant plodded, in a sorry pHght, 
Struggling with winds and splashing through the mire. 
Seeking to ease the pangs of his desire; 
Food, warmth and shelter from the sleet and rain: 
But ever as he went he sought in vain 
Through devious ways that wandered without end. 
Until discouraged he refused to bend 
His steps to right or left, but tried to go 
Straight on his journey, till the dawn might show 
A gladder prospect. Meanw^hile through the dark 
He saw a glimmer or a fitful spark 
That flashed a welcome o'er the watery waste. — 

AYith what new hope the wretch begins to haste. 
Rejoicing as he sees that cheerful light — 
Surely the signal of a fireside bright; — 
But when he tries to open the closed gate 
A mastiff watchdog, as the hinges grate, 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



Leaps out to rend the thief of his domain: 
Sadly the beggar turns to brave the rain, 
Choosing the cold wind and his hunger pangs 
As sweeter comforts than the mastiff's fangs! — 
So he resumes his endless weary way, 
And prays the dawn to herald a fair day. — 

What weary hours the famished traveler passed, 
And how he deemed each hour would prove his last, 
What bitter musings filled his fevered brain, 
And how he sighed for youth and hope again; 
These and all sad things we could wish a-mort, 
And wing our fancy to some kingly court. 
Where wit and beauty wreathe congenial smiles, 
And the soft glance the slipping hour beguiles. 
But life is sterner than a man would frame 
Were he to steal his own Creator's name: 
Though youth may doubt it, there's a hard word, 

"Fail" — 
But there is mercy where the cynics rail. — 
Ay, there is beauty in disease and death 
If ye could fathom what old Ocean saith. 
Who chases old age with his wrinkling tide 
And carves his gems where multitudes have died; 
If ye could listen to the laboured Earth, 
Whose patient thrift saves everything of worth; 
She holds the dead leaves in the ugly mire, 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

And when Spring calls they rise in new attire — 

Violets, roses, lilies, all that's gay, 

Are deftly fashioned from the leaves' decay. 

Now when our tattered vagrant, almost dead. 
Believed the last word of his life was said. 
Behold the rosy Dawn, herald of days. 
Tinted the sky with gold and crimson rays; 
And the dun clouds, that envy joy and light. 
Sullenly flitted in the deeps of night; 
And ere the sun-car rolled with snorting four 
From flaming stalls, the rain had ceased to pour. 
Fair on the right a meadow rose to view 
With gentle slope, and winter's russet hue 
Showed where the sickled hay had lately grown; 
This had been gathered all and neatly thrown 
In shapely ricks to weather storm and gale. 

Forlorn and weary while his weak knees fail. 
The traveler leaves the wet and muddy w^ay, 
Reaches at last the nearest mound of hay, 
And finds warm shelter from the frosty breeze. — 
Soon, in the languor of sweet slumber's ease, 
His woes are melted into roseate joys. 
Lulled in smooth dreams he romps with jolly boys. 
Or counteth up his golden argosies: 
Such happy visions dance before his eyes, — 







W 



<^yyj r^ti^^-n- 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

Joys of his youth, of manhood, of old age; 
For even if old he deems he is a sage. 
And motley multitudes to his address 
Gather for wisdom in a mighty press. 

Flattered to tears in alchemy of dreams. 
His tears of joy were turned to sadder streams. 
Yet even when his visions had been turned 
To things more real, he was unconcerned; 
For though a beggar he, and rather old. 
He was a royal tramp and loved not gold. 
Full of this whim he turned and heaved a sigh, 
And never dreamed 'twas time for him to die: 
Yet so 'twas written in the scroll of fate: 
And death was kind — he died in royal state — 
There he smiled grandly in bespattered rags. 
Lord of all beggars — so the sad world wags. 

His hour of death had scarcely passed away, 
Two farmers found him on his bed of hay; 
And when they knew the homeless wretch was dead, 
They tenderly raised his gray and rugged head. 
They searched his tattered garments hoping there 
To find some token of his loving care. 
Naught could they find of i)elf or hidden gold. 
But only a paper wrapped in careful fold; 
And these few words were writ in letters bold. 
In smooth-made letters of a clerkly hand : — 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



"Kind strangers when your curious eyes have scanned 
This meager testament of one well dead, 
Beseech you, know his solemn will is said. — 

"My name is Nameless, and ye need not know 
The whence I came from and the where I go. 
I give my all, my body, to the Earth; 
She is my mother for she gave me birth: 
Out of her loam my body- first was made. 
Into her dust my careworn frame will fade. 
And, as I think of it, there's no regret; 
My scattered remnants will sweet children get. 
This is the pledge of life, it never dies; 
From dead corrupt the sweetest flowers arise. 
The hour will come v\^hen the atoms of this clay 
Will walk new-fashioned in the glorious day. 
Though long my footsteps stumbled in the mire, 
To other ways my life will yet aspire." 



THE CONVENT LEGEND 



THE CONVENT LEGEND 

Sheltered by massive cloister walls, 
(Where holy men abide) 
While deeply fell December snows 
On the steep mountain side, 
This legend of a convent old 
We read one Christmas tide. — 

'Tis Christmas Eve, and all is still 
And darker it is growing- 
Far from the north on icy wang 
A bitter wind is blowing— 
A colder night was never known, 
Cold, bitter cold, and snowing. 

Forth from her cell a pale nun fares, 
From cell to chapel door. 
And as she goes through drifting snows, 
Her beads she telleth o'er; 
She tells her beads a hundred times — 
A hundred times and more. 

She stands before the chapel door. 
So faint and numb with cold, 
She trembles as the frosted leaves, 
When the year is turning old; 
But there she waiteth in the snow 
Until her beads are told. 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

She tries to enter — " Mary save! *' 
The chapel door is fast, 
A massive door, and she so weak 
From days of penance past — 
Ah, surely she must perish there! — 
But now the wintry blast, 

Blowing so cold o'er hill and wold, 
(A bitter Christmas tide!) 
As if it heard the holy word, 
^Yhen she to Mary cried. 
Struck on the door with sudden strength 
And pushed it open wide. 

And as the massive door gave way, 
('Tis told by good monks old) 
The picture of a blessed saint 
Fell on the pavement cold; 
And where 'twas framed a window flamed 
In amethyst and gold. 

And through this window streamed the moon, 
Resplendent as a queen. 
Together with a glorious star. 
The flitting clouds between, 
And lit the aisle with mingled rays 
Of gold and purple sheen. 



10 



THE CONVENT LEGEND 

The simple chapel, in that light, 
So strange and holy seemed 
That when the pale nun paced the aisle 
She surely thought she dreamed: 
She thought a band of angels stood 
Where the golden splendour streamed. 

At length she knelt before the cross, 
(A holy place to kneel) 
And as she gazed in silent thought, 
And prayed for sinners' weal, 
A vision of the unseen world. 
Blest spirits, seeming real. 

Swept in a maze before her gaze. 
And Jesus Christ was there. 
And while she knelt, in wonder wrapt, 
The vision, strangely fair. 
In silence passed; but at the last 
A cold mist filled the air. 

Nor did it seem to be a dream; 
She heard the shrill winds blow; 
They, as they blew, around her drew 
From wintry fields of snow; 
Forming, she wist, a shape of mist, — 
Our dreaded mortal foe. 



11 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

For as the cold winds gathered form 
That shape obscured her gaze. 
Till even the altar and the cross 
Were vague as twilight haze: 
And all so cold her chilled heart told 
'Twas he who ends our days. — 

* H< * * * 

* * * H: * 

* * H: * * 

4: H: ^ 4: ^ 

But here a page, yellow with age, 
So many, many years. 
Was faded so we could not know 
The story of her fears; 
But o'er the leaf we might discern, 
Though dimmed, perchance with tears. 

That Jesus, Lord, (she loved so well, 
To whom she ever prayed) 
In that sad hour was always there, 
For pity of the maid: 
And when the darkness gathered round 
He said, "Be not afraid.'* 

***** 
***** 



12 



THE CONVENT LEGEND 

'Twas twelve o'clock, the convent bells 
For Midnight Mass were ringing. 
And all the nuns stood in the hall 
A Christmas anthem singing. 
And back and forth a novice turned. 
The golden censer swinging. 

And when the Abbess raised the cross 
They marched out side by side: 
Fair soldiers in a dream they seemed, 
So softly did they glide 
Across the yard and through the door 
That still was open wide. 

They saw the golden light that shone 
Where hung the saint before, 
And near the altar lay the nun. 
Pale as the marble floor; 
So pure and white, a holy sight 
To bless and wonder o'er. 

Her right hand crossed above the left, 
A crucifix did hold; 
Around her brows a halo wreathed 
A crown of Uving gold; — 
(Which some have thought 

the moonlight wrought, — 
The nuns have never told). 



13 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



And all the sad nuns gathered round 
The form they loved so well, 
While mournful strains from unseen choirs 
Softly rose and fell; 
The saddest dirge that e'er was sung 
To bid a soul farewell. 

The grieving Abbess sadly said, 
" Our sister Beatrice 
Stands in the presence of her Lord, 
Where tears and sorrow cease; 
And let us pray, this Christmas day. 
To Him who giveth peace." 



14 



THE VALLEY MYSTERIOUS 



THE VALLEY MYSTERIOUS 

In a valley called Mysterious, 

There two winding rivers flow: 
One with current, dark and serious. 

Moves methodically slow; 
But the other flashing brightly. 

Seems to run. 
Leaping lightly laughing sprightly, 

To the sun. 

In the morning when the glowing 

Sun awakes the radiant sky. 
You can see that river flowing, 

Swiftly by. — 
If you wander or you linger 

On its margin — anywhere — 
You will see a ghostly finger 

Moving upward through the air. 

And that river from the valley. 

From your feet where you may stand. 
Will appear to leap and sally 

From the land; 
Will appear to rise to heaven. 

To the sun that brings the day, 
As a ghostly power is given 

By the hand that points the way. 



17 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

As it leaps and whirls and dashes 

Through the valley to your feet, 
Fragrant odours where it splashes, — 

Swooning sweet, — 
Float with sounds that musically 

Quiver — shiver — everywhere; — 
But above the lovely valley, 

Where the river floats in air 

From the spot your feet may stand on, 

Whence it rises to the sun. 
Every sense of earth abandon — 

Every one; — 
For the sweetest and the rarest 

Things of earth. 
And the dearest and the fairest 

Seem to be of little worth. 



But the river dark and serious, 

Oh beware! 
In that valley, called Mysterious, — 

Falsely fair, — 
It is winding smooth and slowly 

To the west. 
Where the sun has settled lowly — 

Into rest. 



18 



THE LAST OF LOST EDEN 



THE LAST OF LOST EDEN 

It is recorded in the Talmud, that Adam had a 
wife before Eve, whose name was Lilis — or Lilith. 
She refused to submit to Adam, and, being supplanted 
by Eve, became a spectre. 

And there is a tradition, that when Jehovah 
forbade Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, He told 
them it should be unknown and lost to man through 
many ages, until The Millennium, and then returned 
to their race unchanged. Immediately, after their 
sad departure, it was hidden south of the Kaspian Sea, 
in the mysterious Mountains of Kaf, where neither 
Death may change its beauty nor Life nor Motion, 
until the day of its return to their redeemed children. 

And in this hidden garden, this mysterious Para- 
dise, Lilith must abide, where all is life, yet silent, 
immovable, unchangeable as death; and she must 
guard and watch that no motion nor growth, nor 
decay, may mar its beauty or change it, until re- 
turned to the children of Adam — exactly as he left 
it when he fled from the anger of Jehovah. 

1 

Oh, what is the reason God willeth 
That nothing shall ever dissever 
The last of lost Eden from Lilith — 

Lost Eden surrounded, 

Secreted and bounded 
By river and mountain and sea? 



21 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



2 

A secret, unspeakable terror 

Broods over that beautiful glen; 

Long hidden and silent, — but fairer 
Than garlands in gardens of men. — 
Oh never, oh never again. 
The billing of doves in the trees ! — 

The thrilling of birds in the thickets. 

The shrilling of summer-glad crickets. 
The humming of diligent bees ! 

3 

The lily-sweet atmosphere — haunting — 
Where motion is none to be seen! 

The blossomy branches enchaunting. 
That ever loll over the green, 

Bedabbled in water where ripples 

Unmoving for ages have been ! 

And petals the sun never stipples. 
Redoubled in velvety sheen 

Of glassy deep pools, where the pale dawn 

Has Hngered since long the sun failed on 
His journey through violet skies; — 
Through skies of the lost Paradise; — 
Where never again the moon dips 

Away from the shadow-sea, sailed on, 
Down, down as the dark night slips! 



22 



THE LAST OF LOST EDEN 

Where winter winds never have wailed on 
Their chiUing wings wiUing for kilUng! — 
Where blossoms the cold never strips, 
Refreshed in the dew that not drips, 
On leaning light stems are not paled on 
The water no thirsty bird sips. 

4 

What is it — a sin, a sad error 
That lurks as a spirit of evil. 
That haunts as a feeling of terror, 
In silent, hushed vistas, primeval. 

Untouched by the folly of man? — 

What is it, a curse, a witch-ban — 
A sinuous monster in there pent, 

Pervading the sinister air — 
The breath of a dragon, a serpent. 

That fetters the life that is there? 

5 

Oh, call her not, name her not human, — 

Supreme where the motionless lives ! - 
Alone, the frail shape of a woman 

That mystical, silent land gives 
A shadow of human dominion ! — 

For never a beast in a den, 

Nor even a newt in a fen; 



23 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

For never a spirit nor pinion, 

Nor leaf from the motionless trees 

Can quiver or shiver the river, 

Can wake up or shake up the breeze! 



The shadowy shadow of Lilith, 

That lonely lost creature must be, 
In the last of lost Eden, God willeth, 

Surrounded by mountain and sea; — 
Shut in from the wailing and sorrow, 
That surges around her forever ! — 
Where never a mortal can sever 
The last of the past from the morrow. 



Oh, that is the reason, God willeth, 
That nothing shall ever dissever 
The last of lost Eden from Lilith — 

Lost Eden surrounded, and bounded 

By river and mountain and sea. 



24 



SINNERS ALL 



SINNERS ALL — 

*'Safe in the blessing of the Pope I went 

With God's crusaders to the Holy Wars; 
But there a javelin from a battlement 

Transfixed my heart, and I was left a corse. 

"As silent as the light from the dead moon 

A shapeless ghost I left my worthless clay, 
And ever since have wandered, night and noon. 
Tossed by the winds as clouds are blown away. 

*'They swore by blood of Jesus, all the slain 
Should join the saints in joys of Paradise; 

Their solemn vows were sworn and given in vain, 
For only as a ghost I breathe in sighs." — 

Sadly the ghost of that crusader old 

Made his lament, while all his spectral friends 

Sighed in the wind, — so in the winter cold 

Laments the night while chill the moon ascends. 

When all was still, another ghost began 

To whisper slowly with an accent weird; — 

He told his version of the faith of man 

Whose temples in his idle dreams are reared. 



27 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

" When the hot sun uprose in tropic wrath, 
I traveled from a land of desert heat 
To Mecca's blistered plains; along the path 
So often trod by holy pilgrims' feet. 

" Merciful Allah ! in thy name I prayed, 

And every day the Caaba-stone I kissed; 
All the Koran to me a dervish read, 

Expounding every meaning that he wist. 

"I gave large treasure to the sanctified, 

Who cried my bounty on the public road; — 
They promised me rich blessings when I died, 
In gardens of felicitous abode. 

** Within the sacred Caaba Square, at last 

My life was stricken by the deadly plague; 
And there I died with eyes to Allah cast. 

Assured of joys that now seem dark and vague. 

**How many sapless years have rustled by 

As leaves that flutter on December's breeze, 
Since I, — poor ghost — have wandered aimlessly, 
From Mecca's grave to shores of distant seas." 

His tale is told, and now another saint 
Begins to tell his woe — as when afar 

Is heard the owl's last melancholy plaint, 

Against the dawn that dims the dipping star. 



28 



SINNERS ALL — 

"With children in their arms the faithful came, — 
A multitude, —to ask of me the path 
That leads to holiness; — they said my name 
Exorcised evil, and from Siva's wrath : 

"For all things I had suffered, and was free 
To holy meditatioQ in the state 
Of self-denial; — and it seemed to me 

That Time stood still and Death had lost his date. 

"But Age with bony finger touched my brow, 
And all my followers, as the end drew near, 
Went with me down the Ganges, from Lucknow 
To far Benares' gates. *0 city dear, 

" *0 Siva's heart:' so all began to chaunt, — 
*0 blest Benares, happy are thy dead!' 
And as they sang they bathed me in that fount, 
And purified me: and from thence they led 

" Me joyous — or they bore me — all the way 
In triumph — to the Golden Temple's Gate; 
Where deep in meditation I could pray 

For joys threefold that Brahma's love await. 

"From thence to Doorgha Kond,— by christians called 
The Temple of Devoted Monkeys; — these, 
Most happy in that pious precinct walled. 
Attend our God in sacred mysteries. 



29 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

"And we had scarcely entered when I fell, 

Outworn with palsied age, on the hard floor; 
And as I prayed I heard an inward knell 

That warns the heart its tide of life is o'er. 

"They said my soul descended far in space, 

Where Siirya reigns in broad effulgent gold; 

They said I mingled with eternal grace. 

In the pure essence of our God, threefold. 

"But while they chaunted thus my mortal urn 

Down the wide Ganges' wave was washed away; 
And only as a ghost can I return 

To that weird temple where the monkeys play." 

In murmurs like the sound of dying winds, 
The Brahmin's tale is told; and as the sound 

Dies in the night, another spirit finds 

An audience of the ghosts encircled round : — 

"Called Timour Lenk, because my foot was lame, 
My quest for blood and pillage never tired : 
Behold that chief of Samarcand, whose name 
The kings of all the world with fear inspired ! 

"How many thousand victims I impaled; 

How many slaughtered with my scimitars; 
How many widows their lost lords bewailed; 
How many mothers cursed my dreadful wars ! 



30 



SINNERS ALL — 

'* Carnage and rapine were my greatest pleasures; 
Blood was more welcome to my sight than gold; 
The hour I looted Delhi of its treasures 

In throes of death a hundred thousand rolled. 

'*The Brahmin priesthood cursed my hfe and death; 
The Roman Pontiff banned me to unrest ; — 
Yet here I've wandered as the winter's breath, 

No sadder than the saints whom they have blest." 

So the bad ghost of Timour Lenk proclaimed 
The weak futility of church and saint; 

And as he finished many more exclaimed 
Strong approbation in weird accents faint. 

And all the while this offspring of the tomb 

Thus whispered, they were 'neath Saint Peter's 
Dome, 

Where Pope and Cardinals in that sacred room, 
Conferred for glory and success of Rome. 



31 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

An Elegy. 

Eurydice, the daughter of Nereus, was the beloved 
and virtuous wife of Orpheus, the melodious God of 
Music; but at the termination of the Golden Age, sin 
wrought for evil, and Eurydice, while flying from the 
wicked Aristseus was bitten on the heel by a serpent 
and died from the venom. Orpheus descended to the 
Regions of Death and besought Pluto for her return 
to life. His prayer was granted under condition he 
should not look back while bearing her from the abode 
of gloom. For love of her he turned to gaze upon her 
beautiful countenance, and she vanished; and he hath 
ever since wandered upon the face of the earth. 

Dreaming upon a bed of fragrant flowers, 
RecHned a maiden in the pleasant noon. 

As if to pass away the drowsy hours 

In thoughtless memories and wakeful swoon. 

Afar she heard the sound of tinkhng rills. 
The ever-singing birds, that must rejoice 

In life, and far away among the hills 

The faintest echoes of an unknown voice. 



35 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



She listened to the softly swelling strains 
Of liquid notes that ever nearer drew; 

Delightful rhapsodies that o'er the plains 

Were wafted by each friendly breeze that blew. 

But still she lay upon her lovely bed, 

While her bright fancies as the fays and elves, 

Built palaces of moonstone, diamonded. 

Gleaming as caves the astonished miner delves. 

And ever as she dreamed those phantasies. 

She strained to catch the accent of each word. 

Wafted in song upon the gentle breeze. 

Which, faintly first, at length she plainly heard : 

"Fair blow the lilies, 

in a bending spray, 
Sprinkling musk dew-drops 

on the honied bee; — 
Sweeter my dear love, 

oh, sweeter than they, 
Love in thy fond eyes, 

dear Eurydice." 

Vanished the dream, the song has ceased; and now 
A sigh escapes her rich half -parted lips; 

And sorrow almost marks her smooth white brow 
As from her mind the cherished vision slips. 



36 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

The song is hushed; her faery dream is gone; 

She turns and opens her dream-startled eyes; — 
And Orpheus, King of Music, all alone. 

Leans o'er her as his song in murmur dies. 

As dew in lily chalice, into her dream 

He melts. And ah ! what hopes and vows have they 
Mid sighs to tell; while far the red sun's beam 

Glints the deep sky with slant and gilded ray. 

Delightful moments! happy hours! ah fold 
Thy tireless pinions lone and loveless Time! 

Let not the twilight of this day grow old, 

This day when love makes bright the world's fair 
prime. 

The day is gone and night succeedeth night. 
And they are all unconscious of the hours; 

So happy their felicitous delight. 

So sweet to pluck love's constant springing flowers. 

And ah, to roam together that fair land. 

While Orpheus breathes on his unequal reeds, 

Or chaunts a rondo by some moon-lit strand. 

Love-taught, heart-sweet, and that his dear love 
needs. 



37 



THE BEGGAR'S MSIOX 

Thus when the virgin earth was beautiful, 
These lovers in that world of Paradise, 

That region lovelier than the Land of Gul, 
So fondly loved beneath the starry skies. 

'Twas in the Golden Age, and all the earth 

Was joyous, — beautiful with hope and truth; 

The verdant valleys knew nor flood nor dearth. 
And Time, that now is old, was in his youth. 

The earth was radiant in that glorious prime; 

The moon, the stars shone brighter in the stream : 
The Golden Age — alas, that hallowed time 

Has passed away as some melodious dream. 

And where are they? ah, let the fountains tell 

^Yhere they have wandered since that peaceful age; 

Or ask the ^inds, or hearken to the shell 

That murmurs when old Nereus calms his rage. 

Or ask thy soul and know the mournful truth. 
Sadly she perished with the sin of man: 

A lovely flower she blossomed in her youth 
To fade away when sorrow's reign began. 

'Tis ever thus the beautiful is marred — 

Sorrow from joy; trouble from gentle sleep! 

Over the wide sky, bright vdih. glory, starred. 

The ravening clouds rush upward from the deep. 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 



What star-eyed Lily ever routed Night, 

Or stole a tick of time from Nature's sheaf? 

^Yhat vaHant Rosebud ever vanquished Bhght, 
Or crushed the canker from its crumpled leaf? - 

While Orpheus piped upon his oaten reeds 
Sweet ditties tuneful birds might imitate, 

Eurydice, providing simple needs. 

Hunted wild honey and fruits delicate. 

Lo ! Aristseus, hidden in the brush, 

Beheld her beauty as she chanced to pass. 

And, rising to her view, with brutal rush 

Ran lustful after. Through the yielding grass 

She fled in terror, backward to the place 

Where Orpheus waited in their wonted nook; 

Fear urged her that she should have won the race. 
But, hissing in her path, a serpent struck 

Deep in her tender heel his venomed fangs. — 
Alas, first victim of the serpent's rage. 

Martyr of Sin and sad Death's bitter pangs. 
Her beauty weltered with the Golden Age. 

Since then the sad world knoweth not her reign, 
And what is deemed most exquisite is marred; 

The serpent's trail has left a taint, a stain, — 
And all the face of earth is seared and scarred. 



39 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

Far through the night to Pluto's gloomy halls, 
Grim-shadowed, labyrinthed in noxious haze. 

Her stricken spirit as a lily falls, 

Deprived of Orpheus' last love-hngering gaze. 

Wafted by Charon over Stygian tide. 

Her radiant beauty veiled in hideous glooms, 

She, lost to love and light must there abide, 

A tender lamb devoured by night- wolf dooms. 

Far from the hallowed sphere of life and light. 

Where, innocent, she roamed flower-spangled vales. 

Now deeply prisoned in unpiteous night 

She wanders barrens parched with torrid gales. 

Alas, while her sad shadow flits below. 

Glad Orpheus pipeth ditties on his reeds. 

As long his custom when his love would go 
To gather dainties for their daily needs. 

But when the hour for her return was sped. 
And he beheld the sun's dechning rays. 

Deprived of her sweet presence; lo! instead 
Of her dear self a vision in a haze. 

Obscure and ghastly, gathered in that bower; 

And filled with horror he beheld her form, — 
(Imaged in pale mist like a snow-white flower) 

Languished to death by fangs of jealous worm. 



40 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 



Startled from musing rhapsodies he rose 

To seek his love through wilds and hidden glens; 

But still that vision guides him as he goes, 
Fearful in haste, through labyrinthic dens. 

Almost the moon hath flushed the silvered east, 
Almost the sun hath burnished the gold west, 

When gathering in a circle that gray mist 
Hovers above his lone and lovely quest. 

And when he views that child of beauty spent. 
With no sweet spirit in her lifeless clay, 

His grief confounding him, with wild lament 

He halts the night and holds the flight of day : — 

"Spread wide your portals, O disastrous Death! 

Immortal I am coming to abide 
Forever with your victims, void of breath. 

Or ravish your dominion of my bride. 

'*Give up your denizens of midnight woe, 
Immured in Misery's discordant wrong! 

From light eternal to the gloom below 

I challenge Discord with harmonic song." 

Majestic with the power that music gives. 

His challenge rings upon the gates of death; 

Swart Death a moment harbours him who lives. 
Breathing his woe to those who have not breath. 



41 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

"O Pluto, Lord of Shadows and Lost Souls! 

What glory is it for these wretched wells, 
Deep in the void whence Night her chariot rolls, 

To 'mure the light of sweet Arcadian dells? 

" Is this the dark fate virtue may expect, 

The pure destroyed to ease the spleen of Sin; 

What final good can evil deed effect; 

Must virtue lose that wickedness may win? 

"0 Pluto, Lord of human destiny, 

What deed of lustful sin must this requite. 

To blot my beautiful Eurydice, 

Star of my life, in this opaquous night? 

"Release that Child of Beauty, O grim Death! 

Life, light and love should never gild a tomb; 
Her place is where the pure breeze wandereth, 

Loving the rose to lovelier blush. and bloom. 

"Strong in the frailty of harmonic laws, 

I come to quell the wrath of death and strife; 

My love release ! — love's pure and primal cause. 
That I may bear her to the land of life." 

So sings he God-like to his tuneful lyre. 
While stops the torture of Ixion's wheel. 

While Tantalus forgets tormenting fire. 

And the fierce Furies piteous languor feel. 



42 




ff/^frifj. 






'^ 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 



And all the clangour of wide Hades hushed, 
The sad-eyed shadows flutter as the leaves 

When wreathed Spring, with tender buds new-flushed. 
In floating green the amorous Wind receives. 

And in an ecstacy of quivering sighs 

Dark dungeons tremble, stricken with delight; 

The rock-ribbed pit that death and time defies 
Glows with a joy too luminous for night. 

The deep foundations of that vale of woe 

Sway to the rhythm of one soul's complaint; 

Grim Pluto shudders lest that mortal foe 
May shatter his strict portals of restraint. 

Hatred destroyed lies vanquished by pure love; 

Discord disabled, harmony has quelled; 
Pluto in panic, dazzled from above, 

Seeks to restore sweet hfe, obdurate held. 

Wrung from his might that Lord of Woe replied, 
"Brief is the boon of blessed life above. 

No mortal may recross the Stygian tide. 
But this I grant to thee and to thy love; 

"Return with her in thy protecting arms. 
And rise together to the sun-lit skies; 

But if thy glance should turn to view her charms. 
Again to death she'll vanish from thine eyes." 



43 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



Alas, the sentence that should give them fear 

Fills them with courage, joy, and blessed hope; 

Wreathing in ready arms that burden dear 
Orpheus ascendeth to the sun-lit cope. 

While they are rising from that haunt of gloom, 
She sighs his name in tones of former days. 

Which when he hears, forgetting her sad doom, 
He turns to worship her with lover's gaze. 

Oh, sad conclusion of undaunted quest, 

His lovely mate restored by Pluto's grant, 

Only because his love confused his breast 

Again destroyed that shadow-realm must haunt. 

No more for him the adamantine gate 

Swings inward to that region of bleak woe; 

No more for her, twice-dead of jealous fate. 
That silent valve gives exit from below. 

Never again can Orpheus thread the gloom. 

And wake those hollows with his raptured notes; 

To wander on the earth is now his doom. 

Love-lorn in valleys where the ring-dove dotes. 

The wearied centuries have withered away 

The essence of his youth and left him old — 

He seems a shadow in the noon of day, 

A wraith of pale mist when the moon is cold. 



44 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

Weary of heart the Golden Age he mourns, 
In winter winds attuned to minor keys; 

And when the gladdened earth warm spring adorns 
The birds rehearse his plaintive melodies. — 

And who is he whose song is sad and sweet? 

And who is he that sings a mournful song? 
And w^ho is he with slow but viewless feet, 

That treads the swaying asphodels among? 

It is a spirit that pervades the wild, 

The singing birds that gives to life and breath ; 
The King of Music, weeping that sweet child, — 

Eurydice, alas, destroyed by death. — 

A plaintive song doth he to Nature tell; 

And thou mayst hear it by the far sea-shore; 
And thou mayst hear it in the leafy dell, 

By wind and w^ave repeated o'er and o'er. 

For every gale that wafts from lonely isle. 

Loves to repeat the sad and plaintive notes; 

And thou mayst hear it, if thou wilt, the while 
This monody upon the still night floats : — 

"I'll hang my harp upon the willows high. 

The willows in a silent wilderness, 
Where every sweetest breeze that sweepeth by. 

May touch it softly with a fond caress. 



45 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

"Where every careless wind from grove and wild, 
May wake to life Love's song, seraphic, lost 

WTien my love died; ah, fair and lovely child, 
Too frail to live in vessel tempest-tossed. 

" How fond I loved her when the earth was new ! 

Before the day when Slaughter marked his own, 
When all the universe was pure and true, 

WTien only life and love and hope w^ere known ! — 

"Alas, a discord jangles now the string, 

A fatal palsey quavers now the note; 
Fain would I life forego and mount on wing 

To the stars, bland, sweet-hymning as they float." 



46 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

Al Araf to Alicon. 

Seventy stanzas are in the narrative; and there is 
a mystery of perfection contained in the number 
seventy, it being ten times the perfect seven. And 
the seventy stanzas are each of three Unes, — a mys- 
tical cabala that emanates from the throne of Allah; 
for, always will the Two Prophets stand at the right 
and left of the One Omnipotent, — three wills made 
manifest in one. 

Behold, the sacred words that descended from the 
Seventh Heaven, as gentle as the dews of Mecca, are 
the history of a certain wise and mighty Chaldean, 
who crossed over the dismal abyss of unsaved spirits, 
which are neither condemned to the perdition of 
Gehenna nor saved to the joys of Heaven. — Christians 
may call a like place "Limbo," but the true believer 
calleth it Al Araf. 

And before that Chaldean Magian crossed over the 
dark chasm on the glorious Al-Sirat, mysterious bridge 
whose span is as a sword's edge, and over which our 
souls must pass before they may attain the abode of 



49 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

departed spirits, which have been received in Islam; 
the angel Azrael, the frightful cause of death, dissolved 
the Magian's mortal essence, so that his spirit might 
move in a radiant region of the stars that, like a 
foot-stool to Allah Akbar, revolves below the splendour 
of Alicon. 

Doth not the Holy Scroll aver; from Alicon, which 
is the Seventh Heaven (whence the living God looks 
down to earth), streams more golden than the River 
Altan Kol proceed? Al Koran, doth it not declare, 
"Rivers shall run at their feet." 

And in that region the sacred wandering spirit, of 
that wise and rescued Chaldean, saw tinted lights, in 
which a holy Dervish may discover hidden meanings. 

O sacred words! and they were chaunted by the 
Blessed Angel, Israfil — whose heart is like the lute — 
and, with many others, beautiful, are woven in a song 
of truth and hope and light. 



50 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

Over a wide and sullen stream. 
Like the weird fancy of a dream, 
Behold Al-Sirat's radiant gleam : 

Al-Sirat, bridge of brightest glow, 

Rising above the turbid flow 

Of that mysterious stream below. 

Curved as a jewelled scimitar, 

Bright as the shaft of Isfendiar, 

Its light pierced through the distance far. 

I blest its genial beauty there, 

For the bleak night was dark; and where 

I stood was cold, and chill the air; 

And vapours hovered on the tide. 
And the dark current spread so wide 
That none might see the other side. 

But I conceived vales of delight. 
Spreading beyond the gloomy night. 
Led from that glowing rainbow bright. 



51 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 



And, in that phantasy of thought, 
Hope a delusive splendour wrought, 
And momentary comfort brought. 

But I was on a treacherous ooze, 
Al Araf's margin, dank with dews, — 
A sadder place heart could not choose. 

The bridge, though beautiful, seemed frail. 
And I was sure its arch would fail 
To bear me from that dismal vale. 

No shallop light to save was there, 
Nor any craft, with white sails fair, 
To stem the tide on wings of air. 

Fantastic phantoms would appear. 
Which, though intangible, seemed near. 
And filled me with a nameless fear : 

Fear of disaster, a strange dread 
That I might join the formless dead, 
And haunt the void that round me spread. 

Fearing such deep and desolate 
Abyss as my unhallowed fate, 
Backward I turned disconsolate. 



52 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

Thus, turning, I beheld on high 
A pale white phantom in the sky, 
That like a cloud sailed silently. 

This way and that it sailed and whirled, 
But never a filmy edge unfurled, 
Nor was it lustrous, dew impearled. 

It ever seemed a cloud, although 
It left the sky with motion slow 
Until it touched the vale below : 

A phantom of unearthly white, 
A nebula of rayless light. 
Formless and blending in the night. 

The frost of Azrael was beneath 
Its silent wing, and its sharp breath 
Was the black frost of utter death. 

My very veins with ice w^ere filled. 
The well-spring of my life was chilled, 
The beating of my heart was stilled 

As doomed eternal, flesh and soul; — 
Congealed as streams that never roll 
From ice-chains of the nether Pole : 



53 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

Not dead and not alive, I seemed 
A statue in a nightmare dreamed, 
A haunted void — fronting where gleamed 

An arch of hope, resplendent thrown 

From sad Al Araf (antres lone) 

To dim shores of the vast unknown. — 

So light spreads forth from the black sky; 
So life is born from those that die; 
xAnd so from utmost alchemy 

I felt anew sweet life pervade; 

And the dark past began to fade — 

(But still that arch and sad stream staid) .- 

Lightly I moved, as in a dream, 
Across that wide and gloomy stream, 
Over that bridge of rainbow-gleam; 

And soon upon the center stood 

Of that great arch; and lo, the flood 

Rolled red and sanguine — red as blood. 

The light that made the bridge so sheen 
Flashed on the river's depth, obscene, 
Fantastic flames of gold and green; 



54 




^^/(tHZ^,^J J/4W{4^^f^^, 



C>^.A/i''eu^n/^€f^/6ot?i^eJ .i/n/e'*^i'^^ 






THE LAND OF LIGHT 



And those strange lights, that mixed and blent, 
All flashing a wild splendour lent 
The sanguine tide which onward went. 

And I observed its winding chasm 
Flowed fast with many a weird phantasm, 
Writhing in pain and tortuous spasm. 

Like seething waves the sad shapes heaved; 

Alas, it was, as I believed, 

A stream of bodies interweaved. 

But oh, to see that lovely light. 

From the high arch, gleam far and bright, 

On upturned faces woful white! 

And far away their tremulous sighs 
Like mist above the waves would rise, 
Slow- wafting to the leaden skies. 

And from the deep waves many a groan, 
Like sorrowing ghost from mortal flown. 
Took shape and floated, sad and lone. 

What wonder that I swiftly sped 
Over that bridge — a rainbow spread 
Across that Hiver of the Dead — 



55 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

Whilst all those ghostly sights, that made 
My blood to chill, no longer staid 
But in the distance soft did fade. 

Thus, having left the Vale Despair, 

With glad surprise, a region fair 

I viewed with rapture. Wheresoe'er 

My wildered steps were turned, it seemed 

That I was in a region dreamed 

With phantasies that round me streamed; 

And all the woful sights that made 
My blood so chill, and even staid 
My pulse-beat, far away did fade: 

For I had left the dismal tide. 
And now was in a region wide 
And radiant — where wonders vied 

With every beauty to display 
Sights more delightful. And alway 
The breezes whispered, as in May. 

And where I wandered in that land 
A river followed; and its strand 
Was beautiful, of lucent sand, 



56 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

As the bright waves of Altan Kol, 
That over Asian ledges roll, 
Speckled with gold from sandy shoal; 

Glancing through meadow, field and wold, 
Argentine, lined with yellow gold. 
Edged with green banks and forests old. 

And there were places where the trees. 
Close by the brink, caught every breeze. 
Or lapped the wave their thirst to appease; 

And blue as Persian skies in May, 
When rain has left a cloudless day, 
Exotic champaks starred the way; 

And everywhere the Sakhrat-sheen, 
From skies to waters hyaline. 
Dissolved in beauty o'er the scene. 

Oh, it was beautiful to look 

Upon — with many a shaded nook, 

Where all around sweet Hght-beams strook, 

Night came not there with deadly hush, 
Nor chilhng frost, nor loud wuid's rush 
The tender buds to beat and crush; 



57 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

For there were two bright suns that shone 

Together, and were never lone; 

And the bleak night was all unknown. 

One sun was purest blue and ne'er 
Beamed in mid-sky, but circled where 
The far tree-tops dissolved in air: 

The other sailed with wondrous motion. 
Backwards and forth across the ocean 
Of lambent air, that no commotion 

Or tempest ever tossed. Pure white 
It shone, with large and steady light. 
In skies that knew nor storm nor night. 

And when their beams did intersect. 

The lovely meads, so sweet bedecked, 

With strangest lights and shades were checked. 

Shadows that swerved from side to side, 
To follow those twin suns, did glide 
With motion slow across the wide 

Translucent and deep-glowing sky — 
And aye the shadows, silently 
As winged Tacwins, flitted by. 



58 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

The trees seemed ever budding with 
New Hfe, and every field and heath 
Was glowing in life's generous breath. 

To breathe the air gave hope and joy; 

And there was nothing to annoy 

Or grieve the heart, and naught to cloy. 

And I could see no yellow leaves, 

Nor branches bare, nor withered sheaves, 

Nor sign of death that earth bereaves : 

It was so different from aught 

Of earth, or anything that thought 

Could picture, or that dreams have wrought, 

The concave golden sky was spread 
With stars and meteors that shed 
Soft beams of white and blue o'erhead. 

These lights were wonderful and fair, 
Most pleasant to the eye, and ne'er 
Beamed like the noonday's blinding glare. 

As lovely spirits in the sky. 

Or splendid birds, they seemed to fly 

Across the glowing dome on high. 



59 



THE BEGGAR'S VISION 

And every star sent forth a clear 
And perfect note, which to the ear 
Was rapturous as a ringing sphere; 

Or hke the blessed angeFs voice, 
Bidding the heavenly choirs rejoice 
In Him who is their love and choice, — 

The blessed angel, Israfil, 

On Alicon's engolden'd hill. 

Heard by the saints when night is still — 

Ten thousand, thousand joyous notes. 
Sweet as when through the forest floats 
The silvery joys of feathered throats. 

And those two suns, one blue, one white, 
Seemed monarchs of that land of light. 
For all the stars paled in their might; 

And even I, in that sweet hour. 
Acknowledged their most gentle power. 
As did the blue and white star-shower. 

And here am I, where Truth and Hope, 
Benignant, beam from starry cope. 
In knowledge sure Death's portals ope 



60 



THE LAND OF LIGHT 

To larger life, and not to sleep, 
Amid world-stars that vigils keep 
0*er sorrowing men who toil and weep. 



61 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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